History
The initial development of typefaces for the printing press was often anchored in a pre-existing manuscript culture. In the case of the Hebrew press, Ashkenazi tradition prevailed and square or block letters were cast for Biblical and other important works. Secondary religious text, for example rabbinic commentaries, was however commonly set with a semi-cursive form of Sephardic origin. This was ultimately normalized as the Rashi typeface.
A corresponding but distinctive semi-cursive typeface was used for printing Yiddish. This was termed vaybertaytsh, where the Yiddish word vayber mean "women's", and taytsh means to render something intelligible in Yiddish. (Works printed in vaybertaytsh were largely intended for a female readership.)
Read more about this topic: Rashi Script
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)